


You Must Be On To Me

by Jonezy



Category: The Fall (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:58:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonezy/pseuds/Jonezy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the dawn rises, Stella Gibson will be flitting in the shadows, slinking out of town, slinking back to London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Must Be On To Me

**Author's Note:**

> If you're about to ask me, "Jonezy, is this 5k of porn and angst?" I'm going to lie to your face.
> 
> And then suggest you call me an ambulance/professional help/the Church/my Mother.
> 
>  
> 
> Title is from Beyonce's Haunted. You lot do not know how many times I had to listen to that song to get the tone of this piece right. If you want to: Listen along. If not: I won't judge because I have listened to it enough for one lifetime.

“I wasn’t sure this was what you meant.”

Stella smirks, a languid corner of her mouth curling slightly. She’s wearing barely anything, which somewhere Danni thinks she’d been anticipating. If she’d wanted to resist tonight, the thin, oozing cream gown and matching nightgown would have put rest to that idea in under a minute. Stella doesn’t say anything, instead steps back to allow Danni to brush past. Danni’s not sure whether or not she’s provided a flash of entertainment: Perhaps her naivety is showing through. Perhaps it’s not the thing you say to a woman who always says what she means.

Danni ends up coming to a natural halt in the middle of the room, her feet feeling like lead weights treading ice. Behind her, Stella’s voice snakes over her shoulder, waltzes into her ear.

“Sit.”

In circumstances of apprehension her professional training glimmers under her veins and Danni scopes her options: A nearby chair, or the bed glinting in the low lamp light at the far end of the room. One displays obvious intention. The other, a show of nervousness, uncertainty. She doesn’t move. The figure behind her will know what she’s calculating. The figure behind her is trained in similar style. The figure behind her is also always in meticulous control and Danni is in no position tonight, in this room, under this moon to contest that.

“The choice is obvious.”

Danni twitches. The tone isn’t detrimental, rather amused and briefly that smirk at the door burns into closed eyelids. She doesn’t want to be a sense of entertainment tonight. She wants to be something bigger than that. She’s not as arrogant to think that she can play Stella at her own game, or overcome her, or reverse the inevitable that will play out in this room, but if she’s honest with herself, deep and truly, she wants to leave some form of lasting mark that runs deeper than blood bursting under the skin.

Danni sits somewhat gently on the end of a bed that feels as if it was created from the wings of angels. It’s so soft that she sinks into it, resisting the temptation to sprawl back instantly and allow layers of comfort to ease niggling anxiety drumming into her heartbeat. From her position she has a perfect view of the city, splayed out and glimmering under her, lights twinkling in the still noir of the night.

“Exhilarating isn’t it” Stella breathes, now suddenly standing right in front of Danni, the pale gown falling off of her shoulders, the white nightgown barely holding on to a figure that looks as soft and as well carved as a goddess would in marble. Piercing eyes roam Danni’s face, languish over her figure, barely blink. “The view.”

“Breathtaking.” Danni softly agrees, accepting a small glass of amber liquid, meeting dark, lidded eyes.

_Dutch courage._

For a moment they drink. No sound from either of them, Stella’s eyes never leaving Danni’s face, watchful of every moment, every blink. It’s unnerving and makes her strangely self-conscious having every action magnified and under scrutiny.

The elongated silence does nothing to ease the tense atmosphere that drapes heavily in the air above them. Eventually long fingers curl around Danni’s glass and remove it, place it far away. With one last look, nimble fingers move to the buttons on her shirt and a velvet voice hovers beside her ear. “I believe you know what I want.”

Danni nods, cumbersome hands unsure of whether they should be grazing Stella’s back, removing something, doing anything than just being limp and useless by her sides.

“Do you know what you want?”

Stella pulls back, a predatory look now plastered across her features. Danni nods again, slowly. “Yes… Ma’am”

Stella’s eyes widen slightly and she sways forward, scent of jasmine instantly serenading Danni’s senses as she murmurs in her ear, every phonetic punctuated “ _Stella_.”

Danni manages a brisk nod, goosebumps crawling up her spine and the next thing she feels is lips, gently grazing the back of her ear, her neck, lower and lower until they’re dancing across collarbone, until her shirt is three quarters undone. Danni’s not sure if she knows what she wants, truthfully. She only knows that if she wanted to she couldn’t stop this. This has to happen for both of them, tonight, in the shadow of a full moon. It’s the perfect time to purge the tension that has ignited since the first favour that Stella asked of her, since Danni took it upon herself to remove the traces of a rendezvous from her hotel room, stripping it bare. It grew with Danni’s stumbled admission over coffee, was greeted with the exact same smirk then as she was greeted with at the door. Her confession was never spoken about but it was filed away and in car journeys, on crime scenes, in the office it hung in the stratosphere above them. Twice, Danni had thought she might have had the bravery to make a move. Elongated glances, an occasional touch, a curvaceous smile that lasted a moment too long. The time Stella undressed openly in front of her in the bathroom, leaving Danni's eyes darting around the room, desperately trying to avoid the appetizing scene in front of her. Had she stayed and not scurried off, would that have been the defining moment? If she'd have let her eyes permeate her body in the reflection, would Stella have turned, shirt billowing open, eyebrows raised, lured Danni closer? Perhaps. Perhaps if she’d have taken taken firm, controlled steps toward her, confident in her desires they would have been at it everywhere, in hidden rooms, darkened corridors, Stella's back climbing the wall, sighing into Danni's neck, fingers clawing her shirt. Perhaps that would have been enough to make Stella not need the pathologist. Perhaps Danni wouldn’t have felt the need to make snarky comments in said pathologists direction.

Yet now it is almost too late. Dusk is upon them and when the dawn rises, yawning, bathing Belfast in its comforting orange glow, Stella Gibson will be flitting in the shadows, slinking out of town, slinking back to London.

It would be on the last day that something would have cemented between them. It’s an unworthy comparison of course, but Danni feels herself relate to how a young Jesus must have felt, disciples gathered around his open arms, a feast stretching in front of him and the next day, his skin taut and bare, overexposed to the world, left out to dry in the sweltering Israel sun. In the dusk he had had everything and in the dawn he was left with the only the memory of what had been. Stella’s open invitation to a drink, after midnight, in her hotel room is Danni’s last meal. Danni may be young, may be naive in aspects, _amusing_ in others, but she’s old enough to know that when a drink is in a room and the drink is after midnight, it is not a drink at all. She had nodded, gracefully, curtly and they’d said nothing more on the matter. And now here they are. Every single one of Danni’s eight months of fantasies ringing true, but left with the inability to touch out of fear of shattering the moment, fear of Stella encapsulating into sand, running through her finger tips, leaving her with nothing but gentle marks on skin.

Her shirt is shredded now and Stella is straddling her sides. The gown has slithered to the floor and as Danni goes to reach Stella’s own hands pull Danni’s smaller, coarse ones away. She draws back, eyes connecting again and then Stella dips in, warm, faint smoke tinged mouth covering Danni’s. Stella leads the kiss, as she leads everything, with precision and accuracy and decision. She knows when to deepen the kiss, knows when to curl her tongue around Danni’s own, knows when to gradually retreat, teeth grazing her bottom lip. If Danni could choose one moment before the rising of the sun to be endlessly replayed, it would be this one. Tender, but firm, clever mouth silenced, articulate now in a different form of speech. There would be no fear of life-after-Stella-Gibson. There would be no emptiness at a desk, no forgone jasmine scent by her side. There would be no retreating back to London.

Danni doesn’t even know who she has in London, if anyone at all. Danni had never asked, figuring her promiscuity probably suggested otherwise. Family? Friends? Another lover? A regular one? Perhaps someone sat as Danni is, on _their_ bed, the bed they _share_ , awaiting the key in the door, the glide of gown, the brush of blonde hair, the languid smirk. Would she be so callous as to not divulge her deviances in Belfast? Perhaps the lover already knows. Perhaps they don’t stop it. Perhaps you can’t. Perhaps having her come back to you, her lavish her (mostly) full attention on you, her repeatedly spending nights in your bed, her key always opening the lock, her feet settled across you on an evening, her there, half dressed preparing a meal, or writing, or reading, her tender smile at the sweeping of the door when you return from your day is worth overlooking her brief dalliances with other lovers.

Involuntarily, Danni’s tensed. Stella stretches back, fixing her with a gentle questioning glance, one eyebrow only raised a few centimetres. For someone with such sharp, irresistible looks her glances are remarkably soft.

“Danni, if you’d prefer we didn’t…”

“No.”

The look doesn’t harden. It’s still soft, inviting, opening. Makes Danni want to roll forward and kiss her until she’s drunk off of Stella Gibson, every sense overtaken, drowning in jasmine and silk and a voice as soft and soothing as wax dripping from a candle.

“You’ve tensed.”

For good measure, warm fingers wrap around Danni’s bicep and squeeze. It’s strangely intimate, almost jokey for somebody that’s just been interrupted in the middle of such a visceral process.

“You’ve not done anything wrong” Danni rushes. “It’s just me. Sorry.”

Stella, temporarily satisfied, drifts forward, whispers into her ear, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She starts open mouthed kisses, firmer than before and Danni can’t help but moan, head drooped backward. With a last shrug of effort her shirt pools at her waist and Danni sinks backward, spine omitting its last throws of tension. Soft hands splay over her shoulders but they run along her spine, find the clasp of her bra and undo. Stella slinks it off of her body, discards it so that it lands somewhere along the base of the floor and from this new angle she has more control. She stretches forward, hands balanced either side of Danni’s head and starts a gradual descent down. By the time teeth have gently kneaded a breast and lips have enclosed around pert nipple, sucking in a manner so tentative that it leaves Danni mauling her fingers down cotton sheet in desperation, the words have tumbled out of her mouth in a spew of speed and incoherency.

“I was thinking about you going back to London.”

Stella pauses, momentarily but continues with nonchalance, reapplying the same set of movements to the other breast, slightly firmer but nowhere near the pressure Danni seeks either. It’s a ghosting, pressing sensation and it’s so sparse that it becomes tantalising, driving Danni insane.

For a while Danni's so lost in a haze of pleasure that she forgets what came out of her mouth, thinks Stella's not going to address the issue. Stella continues her trail, kissing and kneading until once she’s finished tracing Danni’s hipbone with taunting tongue, she pauses, ripples her body until she’s hovering above Danni’s face.

“Tell me Danni, have you ever had fantasies about me?” Her voice is low, deep, gravelly in tone and it swims straight into Danni's veins, winds a coil a little tighter.

The question though is still unexpected. She falters, splutters. “Who hasn't?!”

Stella rolls off of Danni, a loss of warmth instantly making her shiver. She props up elegantly on her side, toned bicep tautening, looks at Danni intently and with a lazy smirk breathes, “Show me.”

“Show you?”

There's a pause. A fleeting moment, but Danni's caught on before Stella even hums “Mm.”

Heat flushes straight into Danni's cheeks but Stella is unblinking in her gaze, dark, lidded and eager. Eyes locked on each other, neither wavering, Danni trails her hand gradually down her body, slender fingers dipping inside her thighs. Stella takes a sharp intake of breath, chest surging as Danni starts a slow, but firm pace, using it as an opportunity to make up for the lack of pressure she had desperately sought earlier.

“I do have to leave” Stella breathes, piercing gaze never leaving Danni's face, now contorted in such pleasure, head thrown back, neck muscles flexing. “But I'm leaving you with memories... Memories that on cold nights when you're all alone you can think about, and I can think about. You, here, like this, doing this for me.”

Her words, the dripping silk of her voice, her tone is enough to nearly send Danni spiralling into an early finish. Arching her hips Danni curls two fingers deeper, accelerates her pace, fucks herself a little harder to Stella's gentle murmurings, sharp breaths in her ear. She's nearly there now, a blinding light in sight, closer to the edge than she's ever been, half dangling over it when Stella sits herself onto her haunches and in one gentle swoop, pulls the nightgown over herself.

“Don't come for me, Danni. Not yet.”

If Danni wasn't dangerously close before, she is now and she groans, a howl of frustration as fingers wrap around her wrist, pull her away, leave her panting, sweat trickling down her clavicle, past her sternum. Wrenching open her eyes leaves her with a mouthwatering sight, so intoxicating she freezes, protests dying on the tip of her tongue. Stella clothed, in tight pencil skirts, in open, sleek blouses is one thing but Stella naked, body taut and tight, toned lines slinking across bicep, separating flat stomach, illuminating honed hip bones, salient thighs turns Danni's mouth sahara dry. She can't say anything, can't even swallow, she can only watch, helpless at Stella's full mercy as she droops herself back on top and with an appreciative smirk, begins an open mouthed descent once more. Danni frustrated, needing more than a just a repeat of before bunches fingers through glossy hair, pulls gently, thumbs grazing scalp. This seems to sit well with Stella, earning Danni a brief, keening groan, but it only results in slowing her pace to one of frustrating veracity. Again, Danni fidgets, desperately trying to convey a message and it's only when Stella suckles another mark into the skin under her rib that Danni feels her smirk.

“If this is deliberate...” Danni meekly starts, not expecting a reaction.

“If this is deliberate” Stella echoes, punctuating each word with a chaste kiss, dancing across her stomach “You're not in a position to do anything about it.”

Danni muffles a moan. Stella's kisses continue coasting the length of Danni's body until she's nestled, comfortably in between her legs, teeth now gently marking the inside of her thigh. Danni can't force herself to remove her hands, now with a faint sheen of sweat, from Stella's hair, curling them tighter into fists, unable to stop the feeling that she is clawing onto a lifeline.

Stella stops her ministrations at that moment, instead languorously flitting her eyes to Danni's. Her gaze is still as heated, if not more so, embers burning behind steel pupil and unconsciously Danni can't stop her hips from lifting, back arching ever so slightly. Stella smiles.

“It appears we have the same problem” She utters “The inability to fully abdicate control. To relinquish power... To appreciate relaxation. That makes for quite the dangerous combination.”

“Is that why you won't stay.” Danni finds herself gasping as Stella finally gives her what she needs, a firm finger starts a slow but gradual tease. Danni's spine arches tighter.

“Leaving you with a sweet night” Stella murmurs, in time with the pace of her finger “Leaving you wracked and wanton and desperate, the way you have always been for me, is better than elongating the inevitable and destroying our mutual understanding of the conception of time.”

Danni's mouth falls open but she can only moan as Stella replaces her finger with her tongue, long strokes, quick flicks, curls. At one point she sucks and Danni shouts, all care for her dignity long forgotten, hands now grasping the sides of Stella's head. It doesn't take her long, she's tumbling closer to the edge before Stella even needs to start a merciless rhythm of a single digit matching the foreboding journey of her tongue. All it takes is Stella's lips to encase a swollen, over sensitive bud one more time and Danni's sat up, spine ricocheting off the bed, spilling Stella's name from her lips in a heaving climax.

Incredulously, Stella helps her through the last shockwaves, unmoving until Danni's hands uncurl, collapsing limp and lifeless at her sides. She rocks back once more onto her haunches, mouth glistening, face still alight with a curling smirk. Danni meets her gaze and for a moment they're both sat, panting, weighing the other up. It's strangely familiar to the first time (although it must be noted the difference between then and now is clothes) they had met each others eyes. Danni, flummoxed and jittery, unsure what to make of the prowling, eloquently worded Detective with the tranquillizing tone and the entrancing, statuesque looks. Even then she had been willing to bow to every whim and command: Coffee, the exhortation of evidence regarding Olson, nail varnish, late nights, paperwork. Perhaps it was the voice, gentle and easy, slipping through Danni's resistance with ease. Perhaps the glint in the eyes. Perhaps the sexy, slow, smile that's now reflecting back at her, reminiscent of the times she's had to stand back, watch that smile enchant somebody else.

“I thought I would have stopped you thinking.”

Danni doesn't reply, instead choosing to discard the topic and move forward. She stops when she's right in front of a very inquisitive Stella's face. She doesn't flinch, or slither away, instead curious eyes flick her over, almost sparkling with approval. Apprehensive, inferior hands dare to ghost themselves along Stella's sides and her breathing hitches, becomes harsher, quicker. She doesn't reach out. She stays, eagle eyes calculating every movement.

“Do you ever... _Relinquish_ control?” Danni asks, voice cracked and unsteady.

“Sporadically.”

One more glance. One more coupling of eyes. Danni takes a sharp breath and very carefully, very decisively presses the chastest of kisses to Stella's lips. It's brief, but deliberately so. She pulls back, makes eye contact, repeats the motion a little firmer, pulls away. An eyebrow quirks. For the final time, Danni leans in and this time the kiss is bruising, hard. Nobody leads, instead there's a battle for superiority and Danni knows she's temporarily on the higher ground when a momentary moan echoes around the roof of her mouth, entwines itself around her tongue.  She drags herself away, both breathless, lips pulled and marred.

“Now?”

Stella says nothing but the look of white desire is all Danni needs and she's drooping forward, hands firm, a roaming grip, lips roving. Each move isn't precise, there is no meticulous plan constrained in Danni's brain. If she was to be the one in control it would feel like they had swapped places, would feel like too much of  _Stella Gibson_ had washed  over her , altering her circuit. If it's messy, it's raw and if it's raw, it's honest and if it's honest it's uncontrolled, it's unguarded. Inwardly Danni is trying to express her mark. If she can leave her with this, with the memory of Stella giving herself over to someone, no holds barred, no falseness, no constrictions would it rattle around in her subconscious? Would any other lover feel the same? If she has been honest once, would it tar the others? Would she seek Danni? Would she be the one  _wracked and wanton_ ? It may be jealousy, an extended envy, a last gasp at trying to leave something more than just another night, another notch to carve into her bedpost. A last gasp for Danni to feel something more than another outlet discarded by the wayside.

Stella's spine arches, snapping straight in Danni's grasp as a nimble mouth encloses around pure, smooth breast. She uses her tongue to circle, prod, flick,  stiffen dusky nipple. Still there's tension, radiating off of Stella's every muscle and Danni finds herself pulling away, straightening again so that they're the same height. If she wanted to, from here she could lift Stella with one arm, her body slender and buoyant. She could take her, throw her with a comical bounce onto mattress, watch her hair spill out from under her, watch her hungry eyes watch Danni's every move but for Stella to truly relax Danni has realised she needs to still feel in some kind of control.

Danni begins a light attack on Stella's neck, feather kisses working upwards, nails lightly scratching the back of her spine, the recess of her skull. By the long, drawn breaths it's working and by the time Danni has reached her earlobe, she's confident enough to whisper something of her own.

“I know you won't fully let go... I don't expect you to... But I'm going to put you in a position where you can. _Ma'am_.”

Stella props both eyebrows, but there's lust molten into every line of her face and taking that as affirmation, Danni stretches backward, adjusts them until Stella is once again sat atop of her. She seems bewildered, until very gently Danni runs her hand along Stella's thigh, fingers curling until they find the  alcove of heat they had been seeking. Stella moans at the slightest touch and by the feel of her, hot and slick she's more than ready.

Sliding two fingers in, delicately deep and curling, both moan at the sudden contact. Danni doesn't move her fingers and at last what she's allowing her to do, the power she's allowing Stella to take seems to fall into place. Groaning, she plants a hand on either one of Danni's hips, lifts herself, draws back down and finally, finds a rhythm. If Danni had thought the scene unfolding in front of her earlier had been the most arousing thing she'd ever experienced, she was wrong. Watching Stella Gibson fuck herself, riding  _her_ hand tops the lot. It's exhilarating and it's  somewhat naked and  filthy, a darker side to a woman usually so uptight.  She resiles, occasionally twists her hips, leans up onto her forearms, catches Danni's mouth in a heated kiss. It's messy and it's  _human_ , it's not a controlled action, it's a woman so enveloped in the throws of pleasure, a  _human_ feeling, a  _human_ want. There's no precision when she throws her head back and moans, “Another.”

Danni almost chokes on her tongue but obliges, feeling muscles hurriedly welcome the extra stretch, feels them clench willingly. Even Danni's out of breath now, expletives dropping from her mouth every second, or so it feels, the pace now so much quicker and the  tempo so much harder. Stella's keening, chest, neck, back laced in sweat, muscles flexing at their tightest, refuting at the constrains of layers of sturdy skin. She's close now, Danni's had enough experience with women to know the extraordinary fluttering feeling only leads to one forgone conclusion, only heeds one warning. Other hand splayed across Stella's back she waits, eyes locked on each other for the final time, one last haul of her body up and then she sinks down and buckles forward, hand snapping to the pillow, head coming to rest on Danni's collarbone, a cry so beautiful, so ethereal forcing itself from her lips, floating higher and higher into the atmosphere. Now it is a strange feeling for the room to be deathly silent, the only sounds disturbing the serene calm that of harsh breathing, not just from Stella, breath cooling heat on Danni's neck, but from Danni herself, lungs still trying to adjust to  _normal_ unaroused breath.

Outside, the sky begins to rift. Fragile streaks of orange stain the sky, slicing through thick, once dark, now greying in appearance cloud. On her chest, Stella is blissfully unaware of the hands of time starting to unfurl, starting to form a fist, starting a steady tap on the window, but Danni watches until she can watch no longer.

 

* * *

When Danni wakes, the first thought that meanders through her mind is one of confusion: This smell is not her smell. It is too clean, too crisp. On the gradual opening of an eye, the sight that greets her: Belfast, now baked in a pastel yellow glow, sunrise grinning across the horizon is not that of the sight of turquoise wall. This is not her room. But she knows whose room it is.

It is a flash at first, a projector screen full of images, of mouths open, backs arching, lips tumbling, hands caressing. She lays very still aware of two things. The first, that she is completely stark naked and the second, that the gentle throbbing feeling under her veins is thanks to her boss. Her Detective Superintendent. _Stella_. She has had sex, multiple times, with her boss. It is not a dream. It is not a drill. It is reality. What comes next, the following thought, that of Stella's imminent departure halts the birds singing through her ears, halts the postcoital hum of satisfaction, makes her blood run cold. Stella is departing. Now.

Senses on high alert, Danni listens. There is no breathing next to her and there is no feeling of weight by her side. But there, in the adjacent bathroom is the sound of bottles being placed on marble top, is the sound of floorboards gently giving under partial weight. The ghost of the woman she is seeking.

Danni rolls over, very softly, not wanting the rustle of sheets to give away her consciousness just yet. As expected, the bed next to her is empty but, reassuringly, it has been slept in. There are fresh patterns in the bark sheets, there is the imprint of a head molten into one side of the pillow. Even if Danni was unaware of it, for a few hours at least they slept in the same bed. Stella did not up and leave. 

From the look of the sun, Danni estimates it can only be around six am. She doesn't think they'd fallen asleep much before three. A certain fatigue, the one only evident when the brain realises, washes into her veins. But, like an expresso to a caffeine addict, it is gone when the door to the bathroom swishes open and Stella, tight pencil skirt, sheen cream blouse, six inch heels attached, hair curled around her face enters the bedroom. Complete with neck-already-extended suitcase. Complete with, Danni notices with a start, her whole Belfast life.

For a moment the two women can only have a silent stand off. Stella is caught, much like a rabbit in headlights in the corniest part of her act: Her disappearance and now Danni becomes the Detective, eyes scanning the scene of the crime, detecting the abnormalities.

Danni sits up, pools the sheets around her chest. “You were going to go without saying goodbye.”

Stella's concrete gaze falters for the briefest moment. A crumb falls off of a brick. A chink reflects in her armour. “Danni” She goes to begin, but Danni is having none of it.

“You were going to go without saying goodbye. You may as well admit it.”

“I thought we understood one another clearly enough last night.” Her attention has fallen to the corner of the bed. Behind her, Danni notices her clothes, trousers, shirt, bra, knickers are folded meticulously and placed neatly over a nearby chair.

“I understand you're leaving. I'm not making a grounds to stop you. I just thought you would have given me one final...” She trails off, unable to finish the sentence.

Stella sighs, balances suitcase up against the bed and perches  next to Danni , looks at  her with empathy, tucks unkept hair behind her ear. Weighs up her face.

“One final...? Kiss? Fuck? Token of my appreciation?”

“A _token of appreciation_ would have been nice.” Danni ends up sneering.

Stella only  morosely smiles, eyes downcast. “I believe we participated in that last night. You were always more than a” She pauses. “A sweet night. But the timeline remains inevitable. You are  so young,  Danni and  I am old, withe ring . Somewhere out there a girl is waking up to the sound of a tedious alarm, dreading another day.” She pauses again, this time a happier smile, a light in her eyes. “Until she bumps into you. Your shoulders will brush. Maybe you will drop something. Pen. A notebook always worked for me...” Gingerly Stella reaches out, strokes Danni's hand with her thumb. “And she will turn and there will be a connection made more intangible than the one first made between you and I. That meeting may not happen today, or tomorrow but it will and you will realise  what I am saying .”

Danni can feel herself blinking away familiar burning sensations in her eyes. “Is that what happened for you? Is that who you're going home to?”

Stella smirks. “No. Perhaps I never found my connection. But I feel my line of work, the weight of the burden that I would have brought home with me would have severed any. I am many things, but I am not selfish enough to project my baggage  onto the shoulders of someone else ,  nor to  taint anybody else's plans of long term commitment, of happiness.  I am more focused alone.”

“I'm sorry.” Danni finds herself muttering.

With a smile, Stella leans in, as she had done a thousand times last night and places one last chaste kiss to Danni's bruised lips.

“One for the road. A token of appreciation.” Stella says, pulling her body up and away from the bed, applying a blazer. Danni can do nothing now, that she knows. What is about to happen has always had to happen from the minute handshakes were exchanged. Stella strides, grasps the handle of the suitcase and turns, fixing Danni with one last weighty look. “It's been a pleasure PC _Danielle_  Ferrington. See you around.”

On the falling of the final syllable Stella swivels onto her foot and leaves. There's a hesitant pause before the door finally clicks shut and Danni allows a melancholy silence to fall.

“See you around. _Ma'am_. ”

 


End file.
